When PrivatePulse shows you a 'secondary market price' for your company, what does that actually mean? Unlike the stock market — where millions of trades happen per second and prices update continuously — private company secondary markets work very differently.
How Hiive works
Hiive is an online marketplace where accredited investors can make bids on private company shares, and sellers (employees, early investors, VC funds) can list shares for sale. It looks like an exchange — you can see bids and asks for each company — but the mechanics are closer to a real estate transaction:
- A buyer posts a bid (the price they'll pay per share, and the number of shares they want)
- A seller posts an ask (the price they want, and the shares they're offering)
- When buyer and seller agree on price, Hiive facilitates the ROFR (right of first refusal) process with the company
- The company has the right to buy the shares themselves at the agreed price; if they decline, the buyer acquires them
- The transaction closes, typically over 30–60 days
How Forge works
Forge Global operates similarly to Hiive but focuses more on institutional buyers. Forge also offers structured liquidity programs for companies that want to run formalized employee liquidity events. The prices tend to be slightly more institutional and may differ from Hiive by 5–15%.
Why prices on different platforms differ
Hiive and Forge have different participant profiles — Hiive has more retail accredited investors; Forge has more institutional buyers. This means prices can differ. Neither is more 'correct.' PrivatePulse averages prices across both platforms when data is available from both.
The ROFR complication
Right of First Refusal is a contractual right companies have to buy shares that an employee wants to sell, at the same price agreed with the third-party buyer. If a company consistently exercises ROFR at every secondary transaction, it suppresses secondary market liquidity — buyers are less willing to do the due diligence knowing the company may step in at the last moment.
The secondary market price PrivatePulse shows is a recency-weighted average of the most recent bids, asks, and matched trades. For large companies with frequent trading (OpenAI, Stripe), this is a reliable signal. For smaller companies with occasional trades, treat it as a range, not a point estimate.